She was glaring at me, and rather than let it continue, which I knew from experience could go on perpetually, I rounded the counter to her side. She bit her lower lip. It wasn’t often she got angry with me, and I hated it when she did. I literally never got angry with her.
When I reached for her arm, it wasn’t playful or flirtatious like it’d been earlier. I pulled her closer with my hand on her elbow, and she turned to face me.
I rested my hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
She nodded.
I glanced up at the clock. “Twenty minutes to go. Your parents are out of town this weekend, right?”
She nodded. “Visiting Hilde at college.”
“How about we lift a bottle of Jack and I come over for a while?” And maybe the Jack will loosen up my mouth, and I’ll finally be able to spit out the fucking homecoming dance invitation. Maybe…
She finally smiled at me. “Don’t forget the Coke.”
I laughed, relieved she didn’t hate me anymore. “You got it. I’m going to go close down the kitchen. I’ll make us a pizza to take with us.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Four
Kane
“What’s she like now? She still a dork? You two were tight back in the day, weren’t ya?”
“Fuck,” I muttered as I rolled my eyes at Shawn, glancing over my shoulder so he wouldn’t miss it. “The day? What day was that?”
I set the trowel down that I was using to mud the drywall, and I pulled my T-shirt over my head, using the fabric to wipe the sweat off the back of my neck. It was too fucking hot for early September in the Poconos. It was sure as hell too hot to be working my ass off in a house with no functioning air conditioner—one of many items on my to-do list for this place. I tucked my T-shirt into the waist of my jeans and stooped to pick the trowel up again.
Shawn snorted. “The day when you were actually cool, and she was the nerd with the remarkably great ass who challenged my ability to keep you cool. The girl was a cool wrecker.”
It was my turn to snort, and I did. “Why? Because she was smart and actually did what a decent student is supposed to do by studying and getting good grades? You know, she’s almost a doctor. Not like a doctor doctor, like the other kind.” I glanced over my shoulder again. Shawn was cracking open a beer, barely listening to me.
“Snore,” Shawn said when he finally chucked the beer cap on the floor. “Don’t know why you gave two shits about that chick.”
I swallowed, gritting my teeth as I stared at the unfinished wall in front of me. “Her family used to live about a half a mile down the road from here in that big farmhouse when we were little kids. We had no other neighbors with kids out here, so it was just Helene, her sister, and I. But her sister was older than us, and she didn’t like hanging out with us. Hell was pretty much my only friend until her family moved into town when we were in junior high.”
“Didn’t mean you had to stay friends with her after that. You think I don’t remember all the times you ditched us just so you could hang out with her, walk her home, sit with her at lunch. It was pathetic, man.” Shawn laughed.
“You just didn’t know her the way I did,” I said, my voice too quiet. No one in all the world knew her the way I did.
“So, what? You feel like you need a little doctor * now? Get the ex-girlfriend out of your system?”
“Jesus,” I muttered, half disgusted I’d once called this man my friend, half disgusted I still did. “I never dated Helene. We were friends.” I wasn’t quite able to disguise the irritation in my voice.
“You telling me you never fucked her?” Shawn was laughing again.
My hand paused, holding the trowel to the wall. That wasn’t a question I had any intention of answering. “You know, I got a lot of work to do. And you clearly didn’t stop by to lend a hand, so…” I nodded toward the door, hoping he’d take the fucking hint.
“Answer the question, asshole.” This was just random conversation to Shawn. He had no idea he was treading so close to a hard limit for me. It was just crude rhetoric to him—much like every other conversation I’d had with him since we were kids.
“Like I said,” I set the trowel down again, giving up for the time being. “If you’re not going to help me out, then get lost. I have too much to do.” And every last word out of Shawn’s mouth made me want to punch something.